By Daud Olatunji

THE 2015 governorship election in Ogun State, has come and gone, but one spill-over following Governor Ibikunle Amosun into his second term in office is that teachers of public schools in the state seem not to be on the same page with him. The contending issues border on the system of running free education, alleged poor administration of deduction scheme, failure to appoint Principals-General, the choice of Education Commissioner and Director of Education Ministry, as well as alleged failure to recruit teachers into the teaching service scheme, among others.

The State Chairman, Academic Staff Union of Secondary Schools, Comrade Akeem Lasisi in an exclusive interview with Vanguard explained why teachers in public schools are not too happy with governor, decrying that these issues pose a clog in the wheel of progress of the state’s education system. He however, suggested a way forward.

Welfare of teachers

According to Lasisi, no nation can rise beyond the literacy level of our citizenry and there is no way you can handle education with a levity, that is why we believe attention should be directed towards the development of education in the state.

We are supporting the state government provided the welfare of teachers are properly taken care of. In the first instance, we would want the government to implement the balance of 12.5 per cent teacher’s peculiar allowance we have already collected.

Salary relativity

Because we have started collecting this money before the former administration introduced salary relativity and it is our right. We would love Amosun’s government to start giving the balance of the 27.5 percent because if the teachers are happy they will teach effectively. Again, we would like the governor to pay our salaries with our deductions.

This deduction is part of the worker’s salary and there is no way you could get any extra money for any cooperative unless you go into deduction of your salaries into certain quarters. For you now to pay the deduction without the salaries may bring suffering to workers in the state especially teachers.

As we are aware, teachers are public servants, there is no way you will get extra pay apart from your salary and if you need a very large sum of money, there is no way you will get that in the teaching profession unless you go and borrow from cooperatives or a bank. We would love our salary to be paid with our deduction in the state.

Recalling Principal-Generals

Apart from this, when you are working, your prayer is that you reach the pinnacle of your own profession if you are a teacher the pinnacle of your profession is to become the Principal-General. Formerly, we have five Principals-General, but now left with just one Principal-General. We don’t want our own profession to go into extinction. An average student in the country today will not say that he wants to become a teacher because they don’t feel happy whenever they see their teachers.

The reason is this; if you are a lawyer working with the state government you will eventually become a Solicitor-General for the state, if you are a surveyor working for the state you will eventually become a Surveyor-General of the state, if you are a teacher you will be praying to become the Principal-General for the state because that is the pinnacle. For you now to remove the Principal-General from the profession, that means you want the teaching profession to go into extinction. We would love the government to at least restore our Principals-General back to five.

Recruitment of teachers: Teachers continue to retire, even teachers continue to die, there is no way we can prevent that, there were no replacement even as this number of teachers in the state began to reduce. We would love the state government to recruit more teachers for us in the state, because, we want to have effective teaching.

For a teacher to teach 37 periods per week, If I will not deceive you, such teacher can’t be effective. It is only when you have an adequate number of period to be taught in a week that you will have an effective teaching. So, there is need to recruit teachers in the state at least to fill the existing vacancies in the state.

Appointment irregularity in teaching service commission: When you look at our commission, I mean teaching service commission, the edict that set up this commission in 1991 is already outdated. Knowledge they say supersedes power and when you have knowledge you demand for your right.

As at the time Teaching Service Commission was set up, the directive was that directors will be brought from the civil servant to head teaching service commission as directors, while should that be, we want our own teachers to control teachers, when you go to local government service commission you will see an employee of local government as the director in the local government service commission.

Of all the five commissions in the state, I am  talking of the local government  service commission, teaching service commission, civil service commission, House of Assembly service commission, judiciary service commission. It is only in the teaching service commission that you will not see the experts in the field directing the colleagues. If you go to judiciary service commission you will see lawyers there as directors, it is the same in the civil service commission. But in the teaching  service commission  you will only meet  civil servants  there as directors, why should that be?

If lawyers can control lawyers, doctors can control doctors, if local government staff can control local government staff, we want our own teachers to also control teachers because it is he who wears the shoes that knows where it pinches. If teachers are directors in the teaching service commission they will know where the shoe pinches. If I  know that if you don’t collect your salary I won’t collect mine, then, I will take the job seriously.

I am  not saying our directors in the commission are not doing their best, what if these sets of directors are transferred and we are not lucky to have better directors that would have the interest of teachers at heart . So, we would love a situation whereby teachers can also control teachers as it is done in other commissions in the state.

Rural allowance still N1, 000 since 1997: Apart from that, when you look at our grass-root schools in the state, since the introduction of rural allowance since 1997, N1, 000 was introduced as rural allowance up till now, the rural allowance has not been increased. What’s the value of N1, 000? How would teachers be encouraged to staying in these grass-root schools with such a paltry sum.

This is the major reason why most of the teachers want to stay in the urban centres compared to this rural areas. The N1, 000 should be increased to at least N10, 000, so that our teachers can be encouraged to teach in the rural areas.

Teaching profession

Again, we expect the governor to pay our running cost as and when due. A situation whereby you will be owing schools running cost up to three or four terms will not do justice to teaching profession in Nigeria and especially in Ogun state.  There is no way as an administrator of a school you can administer the school without collecting your running cost as and when due.

If you note the fact that we are running a free education, there is no way the head of a school will ask any student to go and bring a single kobo to the school, that is purely illegal and we don’t want to live on illegality, and if we don’t want to live on illegality. Legality must be carried out. We want this  administration to pay our running cost as at when due.

And not only this, the consumable items like WASCE items, if government can pay for WASCE fees they should also pay the consumable cost along side, because if you want to do the exam, there is no way consumable will not be bought to do practicals during the exam so as government is paying for WASCE fees they should also pay for consumable cost.

Also you know teaching profession is a noble profession and we involve in academics we would love if the state government  will be granting study loans to teachers in the state, if you are employed in the state as an NCE teacher, if we get the means, teacher also will be happy to be called doctorate  degree holders provided we get study grant loans from the government.

If study grant loans could be giving to other parastatals   especially to those in the  health sectors  why should the government not give study grant loans to the teachers too. We want to see many of  our secondary schools teachers  with doctorate  degree holders even with professorial  title because we are ready to do this, provided we get running grant from the government.

Running grant

We would love the government to also introduce the registration of external student for NECO exam, there is no way you would have bad elements and not have good elements, if government decides    to cancel the registration of this exam,   the implication is that the higher education potential of that state will reduce. In Ogun state, if one thousand students are supposed  to get admission into higher institution, if you don’t allow them to repeat the exam you will not get up to three hundred students who will get admission.

A student that fails exam and you don’t allow such student to re-take the exam there is no way such student will get the opportunity to get admission to higher institution.

So we would love it if re-introduction of external registration is considered, even though there are bad effects  like exam mal-practice, but, that only happens when you allow it, if we allow for the re-introduction of external exam you give students more opportunities to have higher education potential, we would also love that the re-introduction  is made with modification to curb examination malpractice.

Then apart from this, secondary school teachers are also part of the working class in the states, civil servant in the state are being  awarded with Jerusalem and Saudi Arabia slot why are they leaving teachers behind. I can say categorically that for the past five or six years none of my members has been sponsored to either Jerusalem or Saudi Arabia, we also want our own share of the state benefits. Teachers should also be sponsored to Mecca and even for further study abroard.

We also want to have better communication gap between the government and secondary school teachers, because where there is no effective communication, rumour thrives , the communication between teachers and the government should improve.

At least if you have a work force of about 11 thousand, there is no way you will not need an effective communication between the workers and the government, in a situation whereby the government stays  aloof to the teachers, rumour will thrive , so, we would love a better communication to be established  between the teachers and the new government.

On free education

I will talk as a teacher, as a parent and also as a labour leader. There is no where you will run a free education and you will have a better education.

we don’t need to deceive ourselves, there is a need to improve upon the way we run our own free education here. It is good to run free education because we are in a political era, you will want your people to benefits from you, but at the same time parent should be carried along to have a say in the running of the free education by paying support levy, and even the WASCE fees, parents  should pay half and government should balance the payment.

A situation whereby the government will pay the whole fees for the exam parent will be less concern on the performance of the students, because, it was not the parents  that paid for the exam, but, if you allow the parents to have a say in the payment of WASCE fees, they  will not want their children to fail. Look at what is happening in our schools these days, ask  parents when last did they  buy a  text book for their children they will tell you the government will pay, ask them when last did they  ask their wards what he or she  did in school they are less concerned.

This is because they are not the one paying for the exam, look at the parents  sending their children to private schools they always want to know how their children are doing because they are the one   paying and they would want to know the effectiveness of the school. But in a situation whereby the parents are not paying, they will be less concerned  about the performances of their wards.

But if you allow them to partake in the running of the free education they would want to know the performances of the children in the school, they would want to know the performances of the teachers in the school. When you don’t allow them to pay a single kobo for the exam they would be less concerned .

And that is why we continue to  record  failure in our schools, look at the students of these days ,collect their phones you will see many love messages, when teachers are teaching them they will be concentrating on another thing and their parents will not even bother to look into that because they are not paying. Amosun’s  administration introduces  free education, we are not against that, but, we want the state government to improve on the way the free education is being  run, we cannot collect school fees from the students.

Collection of school fees

But, when the government is not paying running cost how do we run the school ,but, if you allow the parents to pay what we call Parent Teachers Association, PTA support levy or maybe you allow them to pay certain levy, even if the government refuses to boost structure in the schools then we can use these levies to provide infrastructure in the school. But if the government insist on making it 100% free then we would see the result we will get at the end of the day.

On employment

It is because of the type of government we have in this country that we are having problem, there is no way government will provide automatic employment to generality of the citizenry in the country, look at some of the private universities we  have now, they run academic calendar and also an entrepreneurship calendar.

If our curriculums are effective we will not have the problems we are facing today. Look at what is happening in WASCE and NECO during last session, 37 new subjects were introduced  into the curriculum set up, subject like carpentry, plumbing ,  catering and  so on.

If we had improved  on this, even, an   ordinary secondary school   holder will have the knowledge, and whatever you have gained at the secondary school level will be useful even after graduating from the university, but ,instead of this,   government added 37 subjects and there were no teachers to teach these subjects, when we were just almost three months to   writing of the exam, when there were no facilities for all the subjects.

You want us to be taking plumbing at the secondary level, though it’s a very fine idea but do we have the facilities to run these programmes. If government had provided all of these  at the secondary school level, a student who finishes from the university and doesn’t get a job could start something on his own and start employing others too.

Entrepreneurship subjects

Because the knowledge he has gained  at the secondary school level will be improved upon. By the time you are teaching them all these  entrepreneurship subjects, a student will concentrate at least on one to the subjects, if i know i have interest in husbandry that means if at all i finish from the university and i don’t get employment then i will improve on the husbandry i had interest in while at the secondary school.

We want our government to remove the game of politics from education, a situation whereby you make a barrister  the minister of education what will be the outcome, even though he passes  thorough secondary school and primary school he does not know anything about teaching in the state. Everything burdens on orientation and resuscitating  the efficiency and administration of education in the country. When we improve on all these, problems will be erased.

On plan to return Mission schools

Never should a reasonable union be a party to that, most of these schools were established  before the creation of Ogun state.

As at the time the schools were established  many of them just had two class rooms, look at the level of infrastructural development that has now occurred in most of these missionary schools and remember as at the time  the government took over the schools from them they were paid what we call honorarium, are they now returning the entitlement now and look at the explosion in all these schools now.

Let us take for instance the secondary schools in Abeokuta now, by the time the government took over these schools the population of the students was not even up to hundred, look at the explosion at the schools now.